Ukraine Sows 85% of Planned Winter Crop Area: How the Crop Structure Has Changed

According to the Ukrainian Agribusiness Club (UCAB), the sown area increased by 359.1 thousand hectares over the past week, although the pace of fieldwork is already slowing noticeably.

Analysts note that a trend towards reducing the area under winter crops is already emerging. Farmers’ decisions are being influenced by a combination of economic factors: difficult export logistics, the accumulation of harvested crops in storage, limited working capital and high production costs.

«The areas under wheat and barley in the new season will be smaller than previously forecast, while the crop structure is increasingly shifting towards oilseeds,» the experts added.

Wheat and triticale have been sown on 3.75 million hectares, or 82.6% of the forecast area. Over the past week, the area increased by 290.7 thousand hectares.

Winter barley has been sown on 390.0 thousand hectares, or 65.7% of the forecast area. An additional 51.7 thousand hectares were sown during the week.

Winter rye has been sown on 72.5 thousand hectares, or 94.5% of the forecast area.

Overall, winter grains have been sown on 4.21 million hectares, representing 80.8% of the forecast area.Winter rapeseed has been sown on 1.13 million hectares, exceeding the initial forecast by 2.7%.

«By the end of October, we can already say that the main part of the autumn sowing campaign has been completed. As of 27 October, 1 million hectares remain unsown with wheat and barley. At the same time, this year’s campaign is increasingly demonstrating that, amid difficult logistics and limited liquidity, farmers are taking a more cautious approach to expanding grain areas for the 2027 harvest,» said Maksym Hopka, Head of the Analytical Department at UCAB.